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Group claims mosque attack was revenge for leader’s hanging

A radical Sunni Islamic group has claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing of a Shi’ite mosque in southeastern Iran, raising fears about the stability of the region that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and the capabilities of the separatist group.

A radical Sunni Islamic group has claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing of a Shi’ite mosque in southeastern Iran, raising fears about the stability of the region that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan and the capabilities of the separatist group.

The Thursday night attack in the city of Zahedan, which killed at least 26 people and injured 300, reportedly began when a suicide bomber dressed as a woman, killed and injured several people. A second bomber struck minutes later as rescue workers tended to the victims at the busy mosque, Iran’s state news agency reported.

Jundallah — Arabic for “soldiers of God” — said Friday that the attack was in retaliation for the hanging of their leader, Abdulmalek Rigi, weeks earlier.

The group has been active since 2002 and claimed a string of attacks, including the October bombing that killed 40, including 15 members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Rigi said in a 2007 interview that he was fighting the “genocide” of Sunni Muslims from the Baluchi ethnic group. Zahedan lies in the province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which is predominantly Sunni, while Iran’s population is largely Shi’ite.

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An Internet statement from Jundallah on Friday praised the attacks and identified the bombers they called “faithful and brave sons,” as relatives of Rigi.

While Iran vowed to take swift action against the group, the country’s clerical rules lashed out at the U.S., alleging that American intelligence agencies were supporting Jundallah to incite political violence or unrest inside the country.

Journalist Seymour Hersh made similar claims in a 2008 NewYorker article that quoted a former CIA official and Iranian officials have long alleged that the U.S., Britain and Israel have supported Sunni minority groups in Iran.

A June statement following Rigi’s execution accused him of links to “members of foreign intelligence services, including members from the U.S. and Zionist regime’s intelligence services under the cover of NATO.”

Past attacks by the group have been blamed for undermining the Obama administration’s efforts to mend diplomatic relations with Iran.

Washington has denied accusations of past support of the group and U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the twin bombings, calling them “outrageous terrorist attacks.”

Ali Alfoneh, a resident fellow at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and who specializes in Iranian affairs, said that he doesn’t believe the bombing would impact on already tenuous relations between Iran and the U.S.

“Of course it is much more convenient for the central government of the Islamic Republic to blame foreign powers than take direct responsibility for problems of underdevelopment, poverty and mistreatment of religious minority in those regions,” he said in an interview.

“(But) not even the Iranian authorities believe their own propaganda about the United States involvement in the attack.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also released a statement which mentioned other recent attacks in Uganda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Algeria, arguing that together they underscore the international communities need to work together to combat terrorist organizations.

The Iranian government has claimed that Jundallah has links to Al Qaeda or Taliban, and while its location and the instability of the region would make it an attractive group to exploit, claims of a direct connection remain dubious.

“There are certainly allegations being made but not a lot of hard evidence there,” said Mount Allison political science professor James Devine, who specializes in Iranian politics.

Devine says Jundallah’s focus has been for the rights of the Sunni minority in Iran, not the greater global fight against the West that Al Qaeda espouses.

“They may make convenient bedfellows for awhile but whether they’re going to be enveloped in the larger movement is not clear.”

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